


Worthy

by thatdragonchic



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Good Theo Raeken, Theo after hell, Theo reunites with his mom, mentions of his sister
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-19
Updated: 2016-08-19
Packaged: 2018-08-09 19:48:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7814782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatdragonchic/pseuds/thatdragonchic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Theo Raeken was unworthy of all things left on earth, he had nothing left in this world and nobody left for him- the guilt of who he used to be stings like no other but the only thing he's worthy of is his suffering mother Raquelle Raeken</p>
            </blockquote>





	Worthy

The world seemed to break ice cold as he stared at the woman across from him, in attempts to reach Stiles and save the lives of Scott’s pack, this woman from North LA interfered, to help him of course and somehow it shattered his entire being, it changed everything for them both. Seemingly still and unmoving, her eyes were glassy with inevitable tears. He wants to reach out and touch her but he feels too cold and too cruel. There she was, there she is; there he was, there he is. Standing there and he reaches out to touch her but his hand retracts, he simply can’t do it. Not after all these years. Not after leaving. Not after running. Not after hiding when he was bit by that werewolf at 9 years old, forced to drown his sister at 10, forced to run at 11 and forced to hide until this very moment. Now everything was here and out in the open and there was no hesitation when Theo’s mother breaks the space between them. Taking on 3 brisk steps before yanking her just slightly taller son into a hug and sobbing into her shoulder.

He was  _ alive  _ and  _ breathing  _ and she thought he looked so well. So strong and so handsome. Part of her hoped she wasn’t wrong but there was no way on earth that a mother could mistake her son. The way his hands grip at her back, how his mouth parts slightly, how she can feel hot tears that she never thought she’d feel again, she knew he wanted to say something, to apologize- that he  _ knew  _ it were her. But there was nothing to apologize for, her son was alive and that’s all she really needed to know. Raquelle Raeken gently pulls away and takes her sons face in her hands, smiling a water smile, attempting to laugh but only managing a sob and breaks Theo’s heart to pieces. How could he do this to her? How could he leave her like this when he was so well and alive? Yet all these years, she thinks that he was kidnapped, she knows her son and he would never just up and leave her. They always relied on each other. Though he steps back, there’s such a distance now. 

“Mom I’m-”

“It’s okay. I don’t care, it’s okay. Whoever took you we’ll find them and we’ll-”

“I went willingly,” he whispers and she stops for a moment.

“What?” 

“I went willingly.” 

“Wha- why? We gave everything to you… we… I… I know your dad could be a bit  _ harsh  _ but I… I always made sure he never hurt you, never got you involved-”

“It’s not your fault,” Theo cuts her off again. “I… I was protecting you.” He pauses and sucks in his tears, he can hear the pack approaching cautiously from behind. They don’t know what’s happening but they don’t have to. He doesn’t care, they don’t care for him and right now- he doesn’t care for them. This is more than pack. This is family. His  _ only  _ family. “From me,” he continues. “I… I was out skateboarding that day when I was nine and I… I got bit by that big dog and remember you didn’t find anything?”

Raquelle nods, watching her son, uneasy. He keeps talking though. “I… It changed me and I didn’t know what to do. Things were happening to me. But these guys, these Dread Doctors… they promised to help me. To make me a hero, to make me the kind of werewolf super badass you see on TV. They wanted to help me… wanted to show me how not to hurt you… But I wasn’t strong enough to them. I needed to be made stronger and they promised to help-”

“Theo what are you talking about, that’s crazy talk…” Raquelle shakes her head, breathing in deep and Theo steps forward, hesitantly linking hands with his mom. “Theo you’re not okay, we need to get you to a hospital-”

“I’m being serious!” Theo pleads. “Just… look at my eyes,” he whispers, and she looks up at her son, meets his eyes like he tells her to and the beautiful blue of his eyes turns to a shining, terrifying yellow and she wants to step back, step away from him. It can’t be real, this wasn’t happening but she was staring right at him, right into his eyes, and there he was showing a part of himself he hadn’t shown her before. “I’m a monster… I was protecting you. I was  _ saving  _ you.”

“You were hurting me… You left, I would have helped you.”

“Dad would have killed us both if he found out.” 

“They didn’t have to take you from us...” 

“From you.”

“You could have stayed-”

“They were bad people.”

“What did they do?”

Theo hesitates for a moment, before sighing a shaky breath, his mother stepping closer and nodding her head in encouragement. She paid no mind to the group behind them, her son was standing in front of her and she might never see him again. This may be the last time she ever sees him, the thought makes her sob weakly and he looks at her, his heart  _ breaks  _ and there’s nothing left of it. It’s just ash and dust now. 

“Mommy they did a lot of bad things, it’s just going to hurt you.”

“I want to know!”

“They made me a bad person.”

“You could never be one,” she attests, tugging his arm, tears streaking her tired and pale face. She was thinner than he remembered, her thick, brown curls lay atop her head in a semi-styled up-do, her clothes were old seeming but her shoes were new or at least shined. Her clutch purse had long hit the floor where she previously stood and she looked so tired- Blue eyes that mirrored his own and she was just so tired. He hated it. He wanted to help her. “If you were a bad person, you wouldn’t care this much.”

“Well I did my time, so I’ve learned.”

“You went to jail?”

“I went to a mock hell for a while.”

Raquelle hesitates before looking up at him and he shrugs absently. She doesn’t understand but she’s willing to try. His eyes veer away, she isn’t willing to let him shut her out, not after so long. “What did they do to you?” she repeats, very softly but very firm. “Theo I need to know what the hell they did to you.”

“They used me as a test. They wanted to make the perfect killer… so they manipulated me, they brainwashed me, they told me things, got me to become  _ angry  _ and  _ cruel.  _ I learned how to trick people, how to be sly and coy. They injected things in me that I don’t really know what they did… but they would put these serums and these liquids in my veins, they would give me surgeries sometimes and I don’t know what they would do. They taught me how to fully shift into a wolf… Taught me how to kill. How to be feral. They forced me to kill Emilia... to take her heart- because they said Emma was bit too and that she was part Coyote… They put her heart inside of me, or at least that’s what they said. But when the transplant didn’t work they took it out and replaced one of my other organs with one of hers. I did… bad things, things that sometimes I didn’t understand. I was just so fed up, so angry and impulsive. I was  _ desperate.  _ I did what I had to do, did what it takes to get where I wanted to be but in the end it bit me right in the ass. I got what I deserved…”

“What about them? What happened to them?”

“I don’t know mommy…” he sounded weak and small. He sounded childish. Like he couldn’t defend himself and he was being honest, he had hardened up at the memory of all those things but the tears were still there, the regret and the remorse and everything was still there. The hell he was put through to change, the cruel erasure of the damage the doctors had done- it left him more broken than he previously had been. It left him with more weight than the world could bear on his back. “I lost everything and I gained nothing… They made me believe I was powerful but in the end they were just using me. They didn’t really need me. They could have killed me like every other kid they used-”

“But they didn’t because… because they saw something in you and you must have done something to prove your worth to them, it couldn’t have all just been a foolish test, a game-”

“I don’t know, I really  _ don’t know _ . Momma I did-”

“Bad things under bad influence. You did what you were told to do, what you were taught to do. And when a child is taught to be evil, what else are you supposed to be? If they brainwashed you into treachery, what else would you have done?”

Theo hesitates and he resigns into a sad sort of sigh. His shoulders slump. “I got what I deserved. I was put where I belong.” 

“Nobody deserves to be hurt like that. Nobody deserves to be mistreated or to be thrown into hell.”

“I did.”

“You-”

“Didn’t see what I did. And didn’t know I hurt these people, how I killed people, how I lied to people and tricked people and destroyed everything in my path and for what? A little bit more power? To be stronger? To approve to these ancient, zombies that shouldn’t even be living? What did I have to prove that was so important?”

“Your worth. When there are people you love all you have to prove is your worth and you’d do anything for it… After we lost you, I had nothing to prove to anybody else but your father. And my worth was nothing but I do what it takes to prove it and they’re not things to be proud of love.” Raquelle knew a lot about worth. With nobody else to take his anger, her husband's hatred turned to Raquelle, and their lives spiralled downwards as grief, remorse and anger- mixed with alcohol and later on drugs took over. He yanked her under with him but she did what she had to because after everything, he was all she had. After all that she lost, after everybody who closed doors on her- the only thing that was left for her was him and so her worth was reduced to sex and drugs, her worth was reduced to anger induced yelling, to singing in do-nothing clubs, was all these horrible things that she couldn’t detail- and especially not to Theo. 

“Momma…”

“Like I said, when there’s people you love, all you want to do is prove your worth. They were all you knew and you were a child, you grew to love them- you wanted them to think you were worthy of that.”

Theo nods, he thinks he might understand where she’s coming from but he doesn’t know, he doesn’t really know if he ever loved- everything was a cold blur. “Am I worthy of you?”

“You’ll never be unworthy my dear.”

Theo can’t help it, he finds himself pulling himself into his mother's space and holding her frail body to his own. He may have nothing left in this world, but if he could have anything now, in this time on this day, it was the embrace of the mother he thought he lost. He was worthy of nothing else.  Raquelle had nothing in this world, but she finally gained something she thought she'd never have again- her son. And it left him sobbing in her arms, and it left her pulling the strings of her heart back together in his. Broken people mended together and a mother would never be unworthy of her child, her child could never be unworthy to her. She didn’t know everything that happened, but she knew that whatever it was that he still kept inside, she was willing to forgive him and to heal his wounds with hers. 

“Stay with me.”

“One day.”

“Why can’t you?”

“I have to help…” what was the McCall pack to him? A pack? Friends? Acquaintances? “I have to help get back somebody I love,” he settles on. Because maybe the McCall pack meant nothing to him, but Stiles had always meant a lot to him- even if the boys eyes sparkled for a certain strawberry blonde girl. 

“Who do you love?” she whispers.

Theo shrugs. “It doesn’t matter, he doesn’t love me back.”

She nods. “Maybe it’s better you stay with them.”

“What about you?”

“Theo there’s nothing left. Everything spiraled.”

“You could come with me… They could teach you how to fight.”

Raquelle smiles and kisses her sons head. His mother, he thinks, is really the most beautiful and angelic person to ever exist. “One day my dear. One day I’d be worthy enough of crossing paths again.”

“That day should be today.” 

She smiles softly and shakes her head. “Your father is waiting.”

“He doesn’t deserve you.”

“He’s all I have.”

“You have me now.”

“Yeah I do.”

“So stay.”

Raquelle hesitates. “I can’t provide.”

“You have a degree in education don’t you? Or even in art? You could make art and sell it, you could do floor plans or something- we’d work it out. We could get an apartment, I’d finish school, start work of my own. It might be tight but if it’s as bad as you say this might be better.”

She smiles proudly and nods. “I’ll stay… for you.”

“I need you.”

“And for that, it’s worth the struggle.” 

 


End file.
